The Comparative Advantage of the
 USDA/Colleges of Agriculture
 in Doing Problem-Solving
 and Subject-Matter Research
 The SM departments of state Agricultural Experi-
 ment Stations and extension agencies are in an advan-
 tageous position for doing SM and PS research because
 of their facilities, multidisciplinary orientation to
 agriculture and their direct contact with farmers. Per-
 sonnel at state Agricultural Experiment Stations and
 local field research substations are in close contact with
 farmers and can identify and define specific problems
 in a wide range of geographical, physical, social and
 economic settings.


 The Private Sector-Its Role
 in Problem-Solving and Subject-Matter
 Research and Extension
 The United States is blessed with an agribusiness sec-
tor that plays major constructive roles in converting
advances in the basic biological/physical sciences into
new technology, which it, in turn, produces, advertises
(private extension) and distributes. The private sector
also markets, processes and distributes in processed
form the primary products produced by farmers.
Agribusinesses and consumers, as well as farmers and
rural residents, benefit from public agricultural
research in colleges of agriculture and the USDA. This
symbiotic relationship (existing and potential) is im-
portant in the technological advance of agriculture. It
has also been a point for severe criticism of the system.
The critics declare that agricultural scientists and their
research programs are overdirected by agribusiness
profit-making establishments to the detriment of "the
public good" and basic science. (Critics of the system
will be discussed later.)
 In addition to the mutual reinforcement between
publicly supported research and the private
agribusiness sector, the public has an interest in
regulating the production and utilization of chemicals
and biologicals, and the structural changes that new
technology brings about in society as a whole, as well
as in agriculture. Agricultural research generates much
knowledge about farm production processes, natural
resources and people to be used in setting public


agribusiness policies and establishing regulations for
agribusiness to -ensure safe and effective use of new
technologies.


 Relationships Among
 the Three Kinds of Research
 The SM or institute-like departments of colleges of
agriculture and their experiment stations contrast with
the traditional DISC departments found in other
colleges and non-land-grant universities. These depart-
ments give the agricultural colleges and experiment
stations a comparative advantage in working on sub-
jects important for solving problems of farmers. The
DISC departments outside of colleges of agriculture in
land-grant and non-land-grant universities cannot
pursue PS and SM research effectively without such
institute-like departments. No other institution has
such departments, facilities, land resources, and the
direct legal responsibility or the willingness to do this
kind of research for agricultural decision makers. Some
competing institutions criticize the ARE for doing
"brush-fire research" when it carries out practical
research as part of the legislatively mandated respon-
sibilities the clientele of the ARE expect it to bear
(Johnson, forthcoming-c).
 Sometimes unwise and unproductive competition
occurs between the USDA and the land-grant colleges
of agriculture, on one hand, and the more DISC
departments in universities, on the other. What is
really needed are coordinated efforts among them.
From the very beginning, the colleges of agriculture,
which were established to do PS and SM research, had
to draw on DISC knowledge produced by the basic
disciplines. There is an important complementarity
between those who know agricultural problems, are
organized to mount multidisciplinary research groups
to tackle practical agricultural and food problems, and
have the necessary field and laboratory facilities to do
PS and SM research, and those who do relevant
specialized research in the basic disciplines. U.S.
agriculture, today and in the next 50 years, cannot get
along without both basic advances in DISC knowledge
and the capacity to integrate knowledge from a
number of disciplines into multidisciplinary bodies of
SM knowledge and solutions for the practical problems
of farmers. We must do a better, more constructive job
of exploiting this complementarity.